Alien Hospital
by Storybookwriter
Summary: Post "Two Days and Two Nights". T'Pol tells Travis about her experience in an alien hospital.


When it became clear that the antidote that Ensign Mayweather received to counteract the allergic reaction caused by pain medication was working, Phlox had passed out on an unoccupied biobed to continue his much-needed hibernation. Both Cutler and T'Pol had decided against dragging him back to her quarters. Besides, Cutler had said, it would be more convenient to have him in sickbay in the case another medical emergency arose. While the crewman had intended for it to be a joke, T'Pol could not deny the logic that was involved. Cutler had told him that another few hours in sickbay were necessary before he returned to the helm and had disappeared to find an available PADD to file the medical report for when Phlox to read when he would be not be travelling between the dreaming world and reality. Now that his death would no longer be caused by anaphylactic shock, Travis Mayweather could now allow the other looming question to occupy himself. He raised his head slightly, as Subcommander T'Pol, whose presence was no longer required in sickbay, turned to leave.

"SubCommander?" Travis spoke up just as the sickbay doors parted before her T'Pol turned to face Ensign Mayweather lying on the biobed. Now he had her complete question.

"Can I ask you something?"

She inclined her head and Mayweather had taken it for an invitation to continue speaking. She took a few steps away, the door closing behind her,

"Back in the shuttle bay, you said you were in an "alien hospital" in San Francisco. May I ask….why? Were you on a tour or something?" He had added the last part in hopes that she did not think he was trying to question on her entire medical history or anything of the sort.

There was a moment of silence and Travis had briefly considered if he should have kept his mouth shut and spun theories about it silently during the rest of his time in sickbay. He had half expected her to walk out without answering his question but instead, she had taken a few steps back towards his biobed and responded.

"I fell."

"You...fell?" He repeated dumbly

T'Pol nodded her head slightly.

"The planet Vulcan has a much closer range of orbit than your Earth does," T'Pol replied. Where you have oceans we have deserts and there are only a select few places where it snows."

"Okay," Travis nodded his head, but couldn't help but wonder what this had to do with her going to a hospital in San Francisco.

"The year I came to Earth, it was conveyed to me that it was an unusually cold year in San Francisco. That winter, it had snowed which, from which I was told, was not a normal occurrence. When I was performing a task for Ambassador Soval outside of the compound, I was unaware that ice had formed overnight on some stairs and I fell."

Travis, no matter how he tried, couldn't picture the ever-regal T'Pol doing something as clumsy as slipping on a patch of ice.

"When I fell, with the combination of my weight and angle I had landed on caused the bone of my right arm to completely snap in half."

Travis winced in sympathy. Suddenly, the oblique nondisplaced break that Cutler had diagnosed him (whatever the Hell that meant) didn't seem so bad. There was a moment of silence as if T'Pol was considering sharing a portion of her story and had decided to proceed.

"A few passersby had taken it upon themselves to take me to the nearest hospital in San Francisco. As I recall, one woman had taken her scarf to use as a sling for my arm."

"Did they know you were Vulcan?"

"I do not know. I wore a hat and I was preoccupied with the matter at hand."

Travis pursed his lips.

"I had two doctors attending me, one of which had decided to summon the students under their apprenticeship to observe what to expect when treating a Vulcan. They used a painkilling formula provided by the Vulcans to administer to me before they reset my bone to mend it."

Travis had blinked several times. He was expecting her story to end with some horrifying medical screw-up with medication or setting the bone in the wrong way but the story had ended rather - normally.

"I confess I was a bit apprehensive about letting alien doctors treat my injury no matter how mild, but they had been studying Vulcan physiology under a Vulcan doctor stationed at the hospital and they knew what to do."

There was a moment of silence as Mayweather processed the story.

"Thank you..for telling me that…" He finally said, mentally berating himself for not coming up with something wittier to say. T'Pol only cocked her eyebrow before turning back to the doors.

"Get well soon, Ensign."


End file.
